This invention relates, in general, to semiconductor devices, and more particularly, to sensors.
The packaging process for sensors is labor intensive, time consuming, and expensive. For chemical sensors, the packaging process includes sawing a semiconductor substrate into individual chemical sensor chips. Then, the individual chemical sensor chips are separately bonded to and assembled in a bulky metal package known in the art as a T39 package or a T05 package. An example of a T05 package is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,070, issued to Takizawa et al. on Aug. 30, 1988. This piece-part packaging process is slow and tedious and requires careful handling of the individual chemical sensor chips, which may become contaminated and physically damaged during the packaging process.
Accordingly, a need exists for a sensor that is packaged using a batch processing technique that improves throughput and reduces cycle time for fabricating and packaging a sensor. The wafer-level batch packaging technique should produce a packaged sensor that is compact in size and should also protect each sensor chip from contamination and physical damage during subsequent handling.